ISSN: 2226-6348
Open access
In Western music compositions, staccato notations exhibit distinct variations in its symbolic representations, stylistic interpretations, and practical executions that reflect the conventions of their different historical periods and musical styles. These variations lead to different interpretations and controversies, as well as diverse sound effects in performance practice. A similar issue arises in Chinese piano works, especially in transcriptions, where staccato notations reflect the sonority and style of different instruments. Wang Jianzhong’s transcriptions hold a significant place in Chinese piano history. The use of Western compositional techniques to transform different Chinese traditional music elements demonstrates the unique tonal colors and musical imagery of various Chinese ethnic instruments through the piano and embodies a rich Oriental aesthetic. This article analyzes Wang Jianzhong’s piano transcription “Three Variations of The Plum Blossom Melody,” which was transcribed in 1973 from Guqin composition, focusing on how staccato notations in this work reflect musical expression and music sonority in structure and performance techniques.
Beach, D. (1987). The first movement of Mozart’s piano sonata in A Minor, K. 310: Some thoughts on structure and performance. Journal of Musicological Research, 7(2-3), 157-186.
Brown, C. (2017). Dots and strokes in late 18th-and 19th-century music. In Classical and Romantic Music (pp. 349-366). Routledge.
Cook, N., & Everist, M. (Eds.). (1999). Rethinking music. Oxford University Press, USA.
Cooke, J. F. (1999). Great Pianists on Piano Playing: Godowsky. Hoffman, Lhevinne.
Dahl, P. (2023). Poco pesante. About Notation and Articulation. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 54(2), 225-252.
Duffel, J. (1974). The Techniques of Impressionism in the Preludes of Claude Debussy.
Gabrielsson, A. (1999). The performance of music. In The psychology of music (pp. 501-602). Academic Press.
Ham, N. (2021). Bach’s Ciaconna for Flute Solo (BWV 1004), Transcribed by Natalie Ham. University of Washington.
Imberty, M. (2011). Music, linguistics, and cognition. Music and the Mind: Essays in honour of John Sloboda, 3-16.
Jones, T. (1999). Beethoven: The ‘Moonlight’and other sonatas, op. 27 and op. 31. Cambridge University Press.
Kraus, R. C. (1989). Pianos and politics in China: Middle-class ambitions and the struggle over western music. Oxford University Press, USA.
Karydis, D. (2006). Beethoven's annotations to Cramer’s twenty-one Piano Studies: Context and analysis of performance (Doctoral dissertation, City University London).
Lowrance, R. A. (2014). Born to conquer: The fortepiano’s revolution of keyboard technique and style. Musical Offerings, 5(1), 1.
Lerdahl, F., & Jackendoff, R. (1977). Toward a formal theory of tonal music. Journal of music theory, 21(1), 111-171.
Mercado, M. R. (1999). Mozart’s Piano Concertos: Text, Context, Interpretation.
Moschos, P. (2006). Performing Classical-period music on the modern piano (Doctoral dissertation, City University London).
Narmour, E. (1983). Some major theoretical problems concerning the concept of hierarchy in the analysis of tonal music. Music Perception, 1(2), 129-199.
Neergaard, B. (2018). Schumann as aspiring pianist: technique, sonority, and composition (Doctoral dissertation, Royal College of Music).
O'steen, W. T. (1997). Analysis and interpretation: musical analysis as a technique for performance decisions in selected preludes by Claude Debussy. Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College.
Philipp, L. H. (1982). Piano technique: tone, touch, phrasing and dynamics. Courier Corporation.
Paetsch, A. (2002). Performance practices in Chopin’s piano sonatas, Op. 35 and 58: A critical study of nineteenth-century manuscript and printed sources (pp. 1267-1267). National Library of Canada= Bibliothe?que nationale du Canada, Ottawa.
Raad, V. (1977). CLAUDE DEBUSSY’S USE of PIANO SONORITY, Part II. The American Music Teacher, 26(3), 7.
Riggs, R. D. (1987). Articulation in Mozart's and Beethoven’s sonatas for piano and violin: source-critical and analytic studies. Harvard University.
Repp, B. (1998). Perception and Production of Staccato articulation on the Piano. Unpublished manuscript, Haskins Laboratories, http://www. haskins. yale. edu/haskins/STAFF/repp. html.
Sessions, R. (2015). Musical experience of composer, performer, listener. Princeton University Press.
Shanet, H. (1950). Why did JS Bach transpose his arrangements?. The Musical Quarterly, 36(2), 180-203.
Swinkin, J. (2007). Keyboard fingering and interpretation: A comparison of historical and modern approaches. Performance practice review, 12(1), 1.
Shove, P., & Repp, B. H. (1995). Musical motion and performance: theoretical and empirical perspectives. The practice of performance, 55-83.
Wallace, R. (1990). Beethoven’s critics: aesthetic dilemmas and resolutions during the composer's lifetime. CUP Archive.
White, J. D. (1994). Comprehensive musical analysis. Scarecrow Press.
Zhang, X. P., Loo, F. C., Ang, M. F., & Yeoh, P. S. (2025). Interpreting Music Sonority and Performance Techniques from the Staccato Notations in Wang Jianzhong’s ‘Three Variations of the Plum Blossom Melody.’ International Journal of Academic Research in Progressive Education and Development, 14(1), 1558–1575.
Copyright: © 2025 The Author(s)
Published by HRMARS (www.hrmars.com)
This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this license may be seen at: http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode